Laura Dern’s ‘Star Wars: Episode 8’ Role Revealed

When Star Wars: Episode 8 officially started production last month, one of the big surprises in the announcement was the addition of Laura Dern. While we knew that Benicio Del Toro would be joining the cast, there was no previous information on Dern’s involvement or even of a new female role in the film. Everyone quickly began to speculate on who Dern would be playing in the film and the most obvious possibility was that she’d be playing someone very close to both Rey and Luke Skywalker (hint, hint). Today, we have found out who Dern is playing and it’s probably not who you think.

SPOILERS AHEAD

According to Latino Review, Dern will be playing a senior officer within the Resistance, who is called into action when General Leia is injured at some point during the story. It’s unclear what her exact rank would be, but would rank above Major Caluan Ematt (see in The Force Awakens) and operate as a second-in-command to Leia. Where she was during the events of The Force Awakens remains to be seen.

While Dern’s character’s affiliation would seem to put her in line with our heroes, the report would seem to indicate that it isn’t always a friendly relationship. Her character has an antagonistic relationship with Poe Dameron and later in the film, Poe and a few Resistance fighters take control of Dern’s ship by force.

This does not necessarily rule out the possibility that Dern’s character could also be Rey’s mother/Luke’s romantic partner, but it doesn’t seem likely from what we know of her so far. What is nice is that we have a female character added to the film that is allowed to do something other than just serve as a character’s mother. From this account, it would certainly seem as if her character is a senior officer and in a position of power. With this character and Captain Phasma, it’s great to see women becoming more powerful in the diverse world of Star Wars.

We still know very little about Star Wars: Episode 8 (despite these photos leaking online), but we’ll guess even more will start leaking out as Force Friday approaches later this year (toys are always a decent source of information).